


Drool and the Art of Tentacle Monsters

by birdbrains



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ableism, Crack, Disability, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdbrains/pseuds/birdbrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe, the woobie, woke up to another day taking care of his severely disabled brother, Arnold. He just greeted Arnold as if everything was fine. But it wasn’t. ARNOLD WAS DISABLED!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a disability heavy life like mine and have read some of the weaksauce Attempted Darkfic I've read lately, I hope this will be as funny to you as it is to me.
> 
> Warning: like the stories it parodies, this is very ableist.

Joe, the woobie, woke up to another day taking care of his severely disabled brother, Arnold. He just greeted Arnold as if everything was fine. But it wasn’t. ARNOLD WAS DISABLED!! HE DIDN’T SHIT IN A TOILET!!!! Instead, he was wearing a diaper!

Sincerely, in his heart of hearts, Joe was thinking that changing Arnold’s diaper was the most grimdark moment of his life. Joe had spent most of his life watching tentacle monsters torture and disembowel his family and friends. They lived in a dystopian future setting, but that was okay. That didn’t hold a candle to the horror of cleaning a bodily fluid that everyone produces off of a beloved family member!

Now, Joe was a sad in denial woobie so he claimed that none of this bothered him. He talked and joked to Arnold as he performed THE MOST HORRIBLE TASK THAT ANYONE COULD EVER PERFORM, EVER, and even though Arnold couldn’t talk—NOOOOOO!!!! HE COULDN’T EVEN TALK! RIGHT IN THE FEELS!!–he laughed and smiled at his brother. “Today seems to be going pretty good,” Joe said. “The tentacle monsters haven’t attacked at all.”

Well, I, a fanfic writer who has no experience with severe disabilities, hereby decree that Joe is actually so depressed and miserable to be WASTING HIS LIFE TAKING CARE OF AN EMPTY SHELL OF A PERSON.

“I barely got any sleep, Arnold,” Joe said, “because you were watching _Monty Python’s Flying Circus_ , but every time I turned it off you yelled until I turned it back on. You sure do love that absurdist British sketch comedy.”

It was so terrible how Arnold was an empty shell who had no personality and couldn’t communicate. Did Arnold have any preferences or feelings? No one knew!

Joe's supportive friend, Katie, came over. Katie was so supportive that she understood that everything Joe said about how he wanted to live his life was actually a lie. Every time Arnold had a medical problem, Katie supportively encouraged Joe to "just let him go" and "stop prolonging his life unnaturally."

Of course, she also said this when Joe was feeding Arnold. "It isn't natural to have someone else bring the food to your mouth instead of bringing the food to your own mouth," Katie pointed out. "No one would want to live that way." Joe showed her how Arnold could sometimes use a sippy cup and a spoon with a special grip to feed himself, but at the sight of the horrifying medical equipment, Katie burst out crying.

"Joe," Katie said today, "Don't you ever wish you could just go for a walk in the park?"

"Not really," Joe said. "There have been 7 tentacle monster massacres in the park just in the last day. I'd rather stay home with Arnold, even if I prefer Monty Python's movies to their TV show."

Arnold threw his cup at Joe's head.

"Fuck you, Arnold," said Joe. " _Flying Circus_ obviously has inconsistent quality compared to _Holy Grail_ or _Life of Brian_."

"But Joe," Katie said, "do you think there's really anything, you know, _in_ there?" She pointed at Arnold's brain. "He can't communicate anything or respond in any meaningful way."

Joe tried to argue with Katie, and it was all very sad since the truth was obvious. Katie, a person who didn't pay much attention to Arnold and barely even looked at him, was in the best position to make this judgment. Arnold was totally nonresponsive in every way.

Arnold made a certain face and Joe realized he was peeing. "Hey, Katie, can you step out for a minute? We have to deal with a guy thing."

But Katie didn't step out. She was transfixed by the horrifying sight of Arnold's diaper. She could see one tenth of an inch of it where his shirt had ridden up, and it was the worst thing she had ever seen, even though on the way to Joe's house a tentacle monster had derailed the bus and killed everyone except Katie. The diaper was poignantly white--it reminded Katie of toilets, that staple of a meaningful human life, which Arnold would never use.

"Katie, can you listen to me?" Joe said. "I need to explain something to you."

Katie listened sadly to the flood of denial.

"It's true that Arnold can't communicate much, so I don't know how much he understands. But the safest option is to assume that he understands everything, and not to do anything that would be rude or insulting to the average person. I think most people wouldn't want a stranger in the room for this kind of thing, so that's why I asked you to leave."

Katie could hardly keep herself from bursting into tears when she realized how far Joe had sunk into the mouth of madness, thinking that Arnold--the non-toilet-user--could possibly be insulted or embarrassed. But she left the room, feeling guilty for enabling Joe's delusions.

Joe helped Arnold turn onto one side and then another so he could pull down his pajama pants. He ripped the diaper open and it was like the sound of flesh being ripped open, except even worse, because being ripped open by a tentacle monster would be better than living this life. "Oh my gosh, Arnold, how did you pee so much?" Joe said. "Where did all this pee come from? I don't feel like you could have drunk this much water in your whole life."

Joe amassed all his horrifying medical equipment--another diaper, a trash can, and some wet wipes--and he cleaned Arnold and put another diaper on him and pulled his pants up. "I'm really sorry about Katie," he said. "I'm worried about her--she's seen so many people be killed by tentacle monsters--but I don't like letting someone into our house who talks about you that way."

Arnold grabbed Joe's hand as Joe was pulling his blankets back up. "Oh, man," Joe said. "I'm afraid it really bothers you. I promise, I'll never leave you alone with Katie, and after today, I won't let her come over again."

Katie, the great, underappreciated friend (who had indeed considered smothering Arnold with a pillow to make Joe's life better), came back into the room without knocking. "Joe, it's such a beautiful day!" she said. "I wish we could go to Golden Gate Park and see the buffalo." (They lived in a dystopian future version of San Francisco.)

"Well, that does sound kind of fun," Joe said. "Arnold and I both love to watch buffalo on the nature channel. What do you think, Arnold? Does that sound fun, seeing the buffalo?" He looked closely at Arnold's expression as if facial expressions could possibly ever communicate anything. "You look interested," he concluded. "Let's try it out."

Katie was gobsmacked. Arnold, going to the park? Arnold, a severely disabled person, going outside? "But Joe," she said, "you know that's not possible. Arnold can't walk!"

Little did Katie know there was a disturbing complicated medical invention that allowed non-ambulatory people to move around like regular people. It was a chair with wheels, sometimes called by the inappropriately casual and friendly sounding nickname of "wheelchair."

"I hope you don't mind using paratransit instead of the bus," Joe said, "but I just think paratransit is safer. You need to prove to the transit office that you're disabled, so it's harder for tentacle monsters to sneak into the van the way they're always sneaking onto the bus." (1)

"I guess that's okay," Katie said, although she was privately a little disturbed that there was special public transit just for disabled people. Wouldn't it be better to just put them in a room and forget about them?

Joe asked Katie to call and schedule the paratransit, so he could get Arnold dressed and ready for the day. Katie had just finished making the call when she heard Joe yell, "Oh my gosh! Holy shit! This is awful!"

Katie felt a great sense of sadness mixed with relief that the reality of Joe's situation had finally sunk in. She ran into the room just in time to see Joe hurriedly lower Arnold into his wheelchair, and then start rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, Joe," Katie said. "Do you need someone to talk to?"

"The only person who needs to be talked to is Arnold," Joe said. "He drooled in my eye while I was transferring him! What the fuck, Arnold? Your drool is so cold I feel like you just put an icicle in my eye."

Arnold just sat there laughing quietly. He slowly reached out and pulled Joe closer as if he wanted a hug; then he pushed him away again, laughing and laughing.

"Oh, great, Arnold," Joe said. "I'm glad you think it's funny to torment your only brother, when you just froze my fucking eyeball off." He wiped as much drool as he could off himself and Arnold, then put a scarf around Arnold's neck to catch any future drool.

Drool, drool, drool. There was so much drool, a substance that is in all of our mouths, but that suddenly becomes tragic when it is described coming out of a person's mouth, dripping on their chin, puddling on their clothes, or worst of all, getting onto other people. It was very difficult for Katie to see Joe speak so lightly of being drooled on, when being drooled on is worse than being turned into a Human Centipede.

It was a nice, sunny day in Golden Gate Park and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Of course, the truth was that Arnold couldn't enjoy anything, and Arnold's disability was casting such a pall over Joe's life that he couldn't even enjoy the Grass Jelly Milk Tea he had bought. Instead of being able to hold his bubble tea in both hands, he was forced to hold it with only one hand while pushing Arnold's wheelchair. Joe's life was full of such sacrifices.

"Wow, look, Arnold!" Joe said when they finally got to where the buffalo are in the park. "There are some buffalo really close to us, and they seem really energetic."

Arnold craned his neck to look at the buffalo and made a loud, happy noise.

"They are so cool!" Joe said. "As bad as this tentacle monster dystopia is, I feel lucky to live somewhere that has buffalo in the park." Arnold hummed and gurgled excitedly as he watched the buffalo run back and forth.

"Oh, no," Katie said. "How can you stand those sad, incomprehensible wordless noises? It's like something out of H.P. Lovecraft!"

Suddenly, Arnold's head lifted in the air like it was being pulled by a string. His eyes roved around the buffalo paddock like they were also being pulled by strings. It was almost like Arnold was looking at something--but of course, Arnold didn't look at anything. It was probably just some kind of motor problem.

"Holy shit, a tentacle monster is coming toward us!" Joe yelled. Out of love for his brother, he was forced to drop his bubble tea so he could push Arnold's wheelchair as he and Katie ran away from the tentacle monster.

It was an especially horrible tentacle monster. It was the color of grape soda, and about the size of a minivan. It had 30 long tentacles with lots of suckers on them, stained with the blood of the innocent, and it had several rows of sharp teeth, kind of like a lamprey, also stained with the blood of the innocent. It was using all its tentacles to slither very fast along the ground after Joe, Arnold, and Katie. It was a horrifying sight, like when you see someone who wears a helmet because they have a seizure disorder.

After running for a while, Katie stopped. "What are you doing?" Joe screamed.

"Joe, I've enabled your denial long enough!" Katie said supportively. "You have to leave Arnold behind to save yourself. He's slowing us down!"

"No he's not," Joe said. "His wheelchair has a motor, it's actually helping us go faster."

"Joe, Arnold is ruining your life," Katie told him. It was a hard truth, but the situation was urgent. "He's dragging you down! You have to move on from pretending that Arnold is a real person who deserves to have his physical and emotional needs met!"

"KATIE!" Joe yelled. "MOVE!"

"No, _you_ move," Katie said, as the tentacle monster appeared behind her and bit her arm off. "AAAAAAGH!" Katie screamed. "ARNOLD IS PROBABLY IN HORRIBLE PAIN!" The monster bit her legs off and she pushed it away distractedly. "AAAAAAAAAGHHH! WHY SHOULD MY TAXES GO TO SUPPORTING SOMEONE WHO CAN'T CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY?"

Suddenly, Katie felt something warm. She had peed herself from the pain of having her arm and legs bitten off, and the loss of normal human dignity was more than she could stand. "OH NO! I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS," Katie said, and she immediately died.

Joe had been watching all this in horror, instead of taking the opportunity to run away. Now the tentacle monster advanced on him and Arnold. "Arnold, I'm so sorry," Joe said. "We should have stayed home and watched _Monty Python's Flying Circus_." The two brothers hugged each other and prepared to face the afterlife, where Arnold would be able to run, skip, and do calculus.

The tentacle monster reached out to grab them. Then it stopped. It had ten bloodshot eyes, and all ten of those eyes were staring in horror at Arnold's chest. "Is that...drool?" the monster asked. "Are you drooling?"

Indeed, Arnold's scarf was never enough to protect his t-shirt from how much he drooled. A big section of Arnold's shirt was soaked, and as the tentacle monster watched, another long, wet strand of saliva dripped out of Arnold's mouth and down his chin.

"Oh, Cthulhu! IT'S TOO HORRIBLE!" the tentacle monster cried. "Oh, Great Old One, how could you allow living things to be like this, just slobbering all over themselves like they don't have very good muscle control?" Ten single tears ran out of the monster's eyes, and it sank to the ground. "Get out of my sight!" it said. "Please, I'll never bother you again if you just go away. I never eat people with severe disabilities, they're too grimdark."

Stricken by the awful sight of a severely disabled person going to the park, the monster wandered crying back to where the buffalo are. It thought that looking at the buffalo might make it feel better, but it was blinded by tears, and the buffalo ate it.

"Well, that went better than expected," Joe said. "It's too bad that tentacle monster ate Katie, but I'm not sure she had a very good quality of life." He and Arnold hugged again, both still a little shaken by their brush with death. "Well, I can tell you one thing," Joe said, "I'll never complain again when you drool on me."

He and Arnold continued heading out of the park. They looked happy, but they were probably faking, since their lives were so meaningless and depressing. It would probably have been better if the tentacle monster had eaten them.

"I wish I didn't drop my bubble tea," Joe said. "Well, I'm going to buy some more. Do you want something? Maybe a crepe with Nutella and whipped cream?"

"Mm-hmmm!" Arnold said in an incomprehensible howl that probably indicated how sad he was.(2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Yes I know you have to schedule paratransit the day before, but things are different in the dystopian future. What's more dystopian than disabled people having good access to public transit?
> 
> (2)If you write Attempted Darkfic where the "dark" part is just that someone is severely disabled or medically fragile, I just hope you're very young and you get over those attitudes before you negatively impact disabled people in real life. Please try and get to know someone as a person even if they drool, can't talk, wear a helmet, etc; or if they eat with a feeding tube; or whatever. The point is, be chill and realize that people are different and just because something is unfamiliar to you, that doesn't mean life is an unending hellscape for people who deal with it every day. It's just life.


	2. Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you know, I have more to say about this.

I don't know if my ~intended audience~ will end up reading this note, but I ended up wanting to write one. There was some conflict in an anon meme I read, which I still feel pretty shaky about a few days later because I hate conflict and I feel like it's my fault. I was very upset by some stories/discussions on there that were related to severe disability, I posted about it on my personal tumblr (and wrote this story to entertain myself and my friends who were supporting me).

Then someone went on the meme to call them out. I'm sure it was someone who read my tumblr because they paraphrased some of the things I said, and I really wish they hadn't done this. It's not that I disagree with what they said--obviously I don't, since they were mostly quoting me--but if I had wanted to bring it up on the meme, I would have tried to talk about it in a way that was more accessible and not just venting at people for something they didn't realize they were doing.

I'm not naming the meme because it already gets a lot of weird attacks and stigma for things that really aren't fair, and aren't related to the issues I'm talking about here. In any community, a lot of people have these views about severe disability. Plus, I feel like people on the meme were a lot more open to my perspective than many people would be. But I don't feel right talking about this more on there, especially because each post I make on there is promising not to post about this anymore.

So, I just want to explain my perspective here. I will stick to the character names from my story because then maybe these ideas will be more accessible to someone from a different fandom, or no fandom at all. Most of the stories and discussions I saw revolved around the idea of a character's best friend becoming severely disabled, the character doing his best to take care of his friend, and his other friends' reactions--mostly disapproval and worry, as they thought this behavior was unhealthy.

1\. Even though depiction isn't endorsement, there's something implied in depicting a canonically "good" character acting the way Katie does--thinking about killing Arnold, insisting Arnold is "not there" and doesn't feel anything, and arguing that Joe MUST share her opinion, that he only makes his choices because he's in denial. Just like I find it scary to read a story about an abusive relationship that the author obviously thinks is not abusive (like _50 Shades of Grey_ ), I feel the same about a story like this. Treating Arnold like this is obviously somewhat normalized to the author.

2\. On the meme, there was a long strand of conversation where people shared ideas for how the "Joe" character would take care of the "Arnold" character. Joe would talk to Arnold. He would try to give him good experiences. Joe would pay attention to Arnold and take note of anything that might be a possible communication. Joe would not want people to perform medical procedures on Arnold without considering Arnold's feelings.

By and large, these things seem normal to me. I have been working with people with severe disabilities for a few years (my whole working life, but I'm pretty young) and you really don't know how much someone can understand or perceive. There are lots of incidents of people who were considered unable to understand anything starting to communicate; my point isn't to say that every severely disabled person will do this, but that when people start to communicate, they often talk about how awful it was when people treated them like they weren't a person or talked about them like they weren't there. Brain scans have shown that some people in "vegetative states" are aware of what's being said, too. (<http://www.nature.com/news/neuroscience-the-mind-reader-1.10816>)

Really my point is about the least dangerous assumption (this is just a google search for that because most of the results are in PDF form and I always find it annoying to click on a link and it's a PDF--maybe that's just me [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+least+dangerous+assumption%22&oq=%22the+least+dangerous+assumption%22&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&gws_rd=ssl](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+least+dangerous+assumption%22&oq=%22the+least+dangerous+assumption%22&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&gws_rd=ssl)). This term is usually used about educating kids with severe disabilities. Basically, the idea is that if you overestimate someone's ability to understand, there's no real loss--you just presented information to someone who didn't understand it. But if you underestimate someone's abilities, a kid could go through their whole school career without learning anything, basically being warehoused, when they could have learned. A similar idea is called presuming competence.

As important as this is when it comes to intellectual understanding, I think it's even more important when it comes to emotional understanding. Let's say that we know for a fact someone will never be able to communicate at all or become any more independent than they are. Assuming those things, let's still think about how the person is treated.

Think about the consequences of someone being treated like furniture, like they're not there, hearing people call them gross, say that they're not present in their own body, call them "it," never being treated in a friendly or affectionate way, and just being kept in a bare room with nothing interesting to look at or listen to. I've seen all this happen to people with severe disabilities. If someone can perceive even a fraction of this happening to them, it's too much. This should not happen to a human being.

On the other hand, think about someone being treated with love and affection, having people talk to them, having TV or music on, living in a nice room, and being taken out to go to the park, a concert, or a party. Think about people trying to make sure the person is physically comfortable.

Gosh, just think about the difference between giving someone a bath or a shower without testing the water first, and making sure the water is a good temperature. A lot of people in my line of work don't make sure the water is a good temperature. I mean, really think about what it's like to have someone give you a cold/lukewarm bath because they assume you don't have an opinion, or your opinion doesn't matter.

The woman I take care of is more like Arnold in my story--she does laugh and make noise when she likes something. She loves to take a warm bath. But even with that preference being obvious, she's had people taking care of her who just give her a cold bath because they can't be bothered. This kind of thing is really normalized and honestly, it's horrifying to me.

Anyway, this is the main issue that was really getting to me. There were stories and discussions about Joe caring about Arnold's physical and emotional comfort--something I think is admirable. And this was in a darkfic meme. It's a meme where people write horror stories. I come there to read about people discussing horrifying and disturbing concepts--and people are discussing a severely disabled person being cared for, in the same tone as they would discuss something gory and violent.

3\. I did like reading some parts of the stories. I spend most of my time with the woman I take care of, and we have been together for years. She's one of my best friends, but I've almost never read a work of fiction about someone like her. It was kind of cool to read because of that, and in the stories themselves, "Arnold" _was_ sometimes shown to have a perspective and feelings--either by small things like making noises, or by supernatural things like mind reading. That was great to read.

But it felt like these details were being outright ignored by some of the commenters, and sometimes even by the authors. There was still a popular opinion that Arnold couldn't understand or experience anything, that Arnold "wouldn't want to live like this" even when he was explicitly said to be enjoying his life, and again, that Joe's concern for Arnold's comfort was unhealthy or delusional, or that it was foolish for Joe to hope that Arnold could understand...even though Arnold was clearly paying attention to him.

I see this a lot in real life, too--a tendency for people to think they KNOW something about all people with severe disabilities, when they really don't have any information about the person, or they have conflicting information, or when the person is right in front of them, expressing something, and they are not paying attention.

For example, people think they KNOW that someone, who they don't know very well, or maybe have only heard a description of, "has no consciousness;" or that the person must be unhappy or in pain; or that they must not understand what's being said around them.

Often, people aren't really educated about life with a severe disability, and they don't realize how normal life can be for someone who has certain physical/medical needs. They hear certain words like "feeding tube" or "can't walk," and they imagine that someone has to spend all their time in a hospital bed, instead of living in a house, attending classes, hanging out with friends, etc. I always find this really hard to deal with because I don't know where to start in telling people that their idea of such-and-such disability just isn't true. ("The Disability Gulag" by Harriet McBryde Johnston might be a good introduction to this kind of thing--specifically the idea that medical and physical needs don't have to control someone's life, and how dehumanizing it is to be institutionalized. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/magazine/the-disability-gulag.html>)

I sometimes hear people expressing the opinion that there's no reason for their distant family member, or friend of a friend, to be "kept alive" (by feeding or medical treatment)--but they don't actually know this person, aside from a description of their medical issues, which brings me to my next point.

4\. There's a pretty strong bias toward thinking that people with certain disabilities should die or not exist. Suggested reading: Attempted Suicide, Completed by W. Carol Cleigh <http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/0301/0301ft4.htm>; Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnston <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html>; lots of stuff by Mel Baggs <https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/>.

I'd also suggest Not Dead Yet but again, I'm hampered by the fear that it will seem totally bazonkers to people who haven't heard these ideas before: <http://www.notdeadyet.org/assisted-suicide-talking-points> So maybe read the other things first. Basically, society and medical professionals value someone's life less when the person has certain disabilities, and see the person's problems are more unchangeable. (Which I'd partially attribute to what I mentioned before--that people don't realize how normal life can be with a disability.)

I hate this bias. I want people to treat my best friend like anyone else, not jump to think that she should die whenever she has a problem. I saw this bias in those fandom conversations about "Arnold." In the stories, Arnold either seemed happy or his feelings were unknown; Joe accepted Arnold's disability and wanted to take care of him. But the commenters, and Joe's "supportive friends" in the story (who were mostly the POV characters) could not accept that this was okay.

5\. I was upset by what I saw as horror-type or tragedy-type descriptions of normal aspects of life with a severe disability, like someone wearing diapers or drooling. It made me upset to think about my best friend meeting someone who writes a long, sad description of drool dripping down someone's face and onto their shirt. I don't want them to look at my wonderful, vibrant friend and only see drool.

A particular passage that bothered me was describing "Arnold's" medical equipment and other accessories (like pillows and diapers) in a lot of detail, and then the "Katie" character (a guy in this case) thinking, "This was one of the saddest things he had ever seen." Obviously, my friends are a bit biased, but everyone I quoted or described this to was upset. One person's reaction was, "A disabled person being cared for? How horrible!"

It was especially weird in the context of canon because the "Katie" character has seen a lot of violent and awful things, yet he still has this reaction. Arnold's diapers are sadder. Again, I felt upset at the thought of how people with this attitude would treat my best friend if they realized that she wears diapers, has a feeding tube, etc. I always found it odd how her parents were so opposed to her wearing a helmet for safety (she has a seizure disorder). They thought it was very important that people not see her wearing a helmet. I understand why now.

Another friend said, "It's upsetting because...I see how it's wrong, at the same time part of me does feel a little sad at the thought of someone needing those things...but then it's even more upsetting because it's like the person is taking that feeling, and blowing it up into something much bigger that's dehumanizing." This hit the nail on the head for me. There may be aspects of sadness, pain, and difficulty related to disability and illness, but they don't always have to define things. I guess I felt like in a lot of these stories/discussions, there was an idea that you HAVE to force negative things to the front when discussing severely disabled people, that the main point of someone like that, and their life, is always negative.

6\. There seemed to be a general sense that only negative feelings expressed about disability could be sincere. Like, if Joe was worried or crying, those were his sincere feelings coming through. If Joe said he was happy to take care of Arnold, or tried to make light of the situation by saying "now Arnold has an excuse to sleep in as late as he wants," people treated it as delusional, denial, being stoic, etc. (quoting this line in comments as if it was a particularly sad moment in the story). "Joe says he's happy and I think he really believes it," said a Katie-type character, disbelievingly.

I don't think people should repress sad/negative feelings about disability, but that doesn't mean that it's bad to try and accept someone's disability, make decisions based on the needs they have, or talk about positive things or lighter aspects of the situation. I think this is a good way to deal with most problems that come up in life! There seemed to be negativity about NOT being negative.

7\. One anon got upset and felt like I was telling them that people are morally obligated to give up their life to take care of another person. I'm upset that they were upset, but I really don't think this reaction was warranted based on what I said. Honestly, the general throughline in the community seemed to be the opposite--that it's questionable if you DO want to take care of a severely disabled person.

In some of the stories/discussions, Joe was portrayed doing things like not sleeping or eating enough because he was taking care of Arnold. I obviously don't agree with this or think that anyone should do this, and I'm not objecting to people thinking THIS is unhealthy, just like I'm not saying that every depiction of severe disability should be about unicorns flying over rainbows and shitting moonbeams into their beautiful, glittering diapers ("THIS WAS THE HAPPIEST THING KATIE HAD EVER SEEN!"). But, I felt like there was a tendency for people to act like it was unhealthy for Joe to choose to take care of and prioritize Arnold, even in completely normal, reasonable ways. That is why I was so upset.

8\. I think that's about it for today.

9 (7/26). A friend has suggested I link to Martin Pistorius: <http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/09/376084137/trapped-in-his-body-for-12-years-a-man-breaks-free> He has written a memoir and has a website but the NPR thing seems like a good intro. He was apparently in a coma for 12 years and the article discusses how bored he was and how he felt when his mom told him, "I hope you die," thinking that he couldn't understand. My friend emphasized if people are starting to think about this subject, "they have to make the next step which is - if he did in fact have ID [mental disabilities] it would still not have been ok to treat him [like he wasn't there]." I do think when people cover this kind of thing in the media, they often emphasize if someone was misdiagnosed with mental disabilities, as if that's the point of the story--but no one should go through this even if they do have mental disabilities.


End file.
